


No Matter What They Say, We're Heroes

by AndyAO3



Series: somewhere (there's a place for us) [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Fluff, Headcanon, Hospitalization, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, SEP-era quality bonding time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-22 03:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8271742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyAO3/pseuds/AndyAO3
Summary: From the start, they were making their own narrative.





	1. men are meant to be more than the shadows of each other

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just gonna straight up say it: this draws heavily from my own personal experience coming from a military family and growing up around bases and JROTC programs all my life. I literally knew a kid who was exactly like how I imagine young Jack Morrison, who was a hot mess of familial pressures and social expectations. He even had the whole blond haired blue eyed golden boy thing going for him. I have no idea what happened to him, but looking back, I can only hope he got free. He was a breakdown waiting to happen.
> 
> Growing up, I remember my mom, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, all of them. I remember them talking about how kids these days were so reliant on their damned meds and their self-esteem and their psychologists, how the military wouldn't stand for that kind of crap. I remember my mom, an actual drill sergeant, reciting anecdotes about how these kids would be found out and their drugs would be taken away and they'd fall to pieces and wash out. Like it was the kids' fault, and not the military's, or the recruiters', or anyone elses'. I remember how when I fell ill, my family called it disappointing how I wouldn't be eligible for joining the military. I remember my cousin who left the military because he wasn't suited to the lifestyle and has been viewed as pitiful and broken and a disappointment ever since. 
> 
> But you never hear about that, do you? 
> 
> That's why this exists. But don't worry, I'll add to it. It'll get less sad. I love the boys too much to let them be sad for too terribly long.

After a month of working together, Gabriel had pretty much resigned himself to the fact that this Morrison guy he'd been partnered with was going to get on his nerves no matter what. This was mostly due to the fact that Gabriel found it damn near impossible to stay mad at him. Morrison was a literal ray of fucking sunshine, and Gabriel hated it. He especially hated it when, on a day when Morrison didn't come down to the mess for breakfast, seeing the empty seat worried the shit out of him.

No, not worried. Of course not. He was just uneasy about the change in routine, that was all. Morrison never missed meals. The guy could probably eat an entire horse and still be hungry afterward (hell, all the ones that had survived the SEP probably could).

He wasn't _worried_ , he told himself after spending most of breakfast staring at that empty seat. It was just weird, to not see Morrison there. Just bored, not getting to watch him make an ass of himself trying to make awkward conversation with the other soldiers. Just unsettled, with no one to make fun of for not knowing any movie references. That was all.

Walking to Morrison's quarters afterward, Gabriel kept telling himself those things, and kept hating how telling himself all that didn't make it any more true.

He knocked on the door. A good minute or so passed where nothing happened. Impatient and annoyed, he knocked again; this time he heard shuffling, bumping, the squeak of a too-small cot shifting under the weight of a person who was just slightly too big for it. Gabriel let out a long sigh, relaxing somewhat. He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath to begin with.

The door slid open, and there was Morrison with those big pretty blue eyes looking right at him, bloodshot and exhausted. "Reyes?" The room beyond was a mess, and not the kind of I Have A System, Okay mess that Gabriel favored. More like the kind of mess that said Morrison just didn't care, couldn't be bothered to be tidy without the threat of surprise inspections looming over him.

It didn't help at all with the worry that nagged at the back of Gabriel's mind, and that was aggravating in itself. "Hey," Gabriel said, offering a quick wave, making a show of peering past Morrison and into his quarters, catching Morrison's stiffening posture as he did so. "You, uh. You okay?"

"Yeah, fine, everything's fine." The response was too quick, Morrison flashing a brief smile as he fidgeted and shifted to block Gabriel's view.

"Alright, figured I'd ask. Didn't see you at breakfast, thought something might be..." Gabriel trailed off, craning his neck to be even more obvious. Cagey Morrison was a Morrison more likely to talk, and the sooner whatever it was got dealt with, the better. Because it _was_ obvious that something was wrong, or at least it was to Gabriel, and he didn't want to get reprimanded for Morrison being off his game just because the two of them were partners.

That was what he told himself as he watched the dumbass make a valiant effort towards chewing a hole in his lower lip, anyway. "Do-- do you want to come in?" Morrison asked after a minute, gesturing inward. Gabriel nodded, and Morrison quickly stepped aside to let him in.

It looked even messier from the inside, Gabriel thought. The bed was unmade, clothes were strewn over the floor. A tablet on the bed was still tabbed in to some kind of card game that Gabriel didn't recognize (and it was impossible to tell whether this was because Morrison was just the kind of guy who played card games or just the best that he could get on their heavily monitored and sanctioned internet usage).

Oh, and there was a prescription pill bottle on the bedside table. "Sorry about the mess," Morrison said as he picked up a laundry bag and hastened to stuff things into it.

Gabriel's eyes were drawn to the bottle. "What's that."

"What's-- _oh!_ " Morrison turned to see what Gabriel was looking at and promptly went white as a sheet, plucking the bottle from the table and pocketing it. It didn't make a sound. Empty, then? "Oh, shit, sorry. That's, this is nothing. It's nothing."

"Morrison." Gabriel's mind raced, and he fought to keep his tone and expression even in spite of his thoughts consisting mostly of profanities and him kicking himself. "What was in that."

"Nothing! It's, it's not anything that anyone-- it's nothing." Morrison sounded like he was trying not to panic. "Look, just. Don't worry about it, okay?"

Gabriel gave Morrison another once-over, really looking closely this time. Wracking his brain for symptoms of overdose, unable to draw a comparison because he didn't have a clue what was in the bottle to begin with. He held out his hand and Morrison winced, shying away. "Let me see," he said.

Morrison froze.

"We're partners," Gabriel said. "I'm not about to rat you out, but I still need to know this shit. C'mon, boy scout, lemme see."

At that, Morrison stood straighter, puffing out his chest a bit. Like he was trying to look important or something. Too bad it just looked like an indignant pout to Gabriel, or like a kitten puffing up its tail when scared. "It's not anything that'll affect my duties or my performance in the field."

"Then prove it." Gabriel kept his hand outstretched, waiting.

Morrison sighed, slumping and frowning at Gabriel's hand, then at his own sock-covered feet. For a fraction of a second, it looked like he might cry. He ran a hand through his hair, gnawed his lip a little more. Refused to look Gabriel in the eye as he pulled out the bottle and rolled it in one hand, the other still clutching the half-full laundry bag.

The bottle was handed over, and Gabriel let himself relax, holding it up to the light to read the label. _Citalopram._ He glanced at Morrison questioningly, eyebrows raised.

"It's an antidepressant," the other soldier mumbled. "Helps with anxiety too."

The muscles in Gabriel's jaw went wire-tense. He looked up, sought Morrison's gaze; the other soldier met it with a sullen look of his own. "Quite a cocktail," Gabriel remarked, carefully measured again.

"Borderline cases usually are, right?" Morrison gave him a shaky smile. It was a brief, fragile thing that faded quickly, giving way to something painfully vulnerable and hard to look at. "Don't-- don't tell anyone. _Please_."

Borderline. Fuck, it explained so much. Gabriel looked down at the bottle again. Zero refills left, the label said, and the pharmacy it came from was somewhere in Indiana. "Do you need more?"

"No! No, I can-- I can live without it. It's fine, I told you. It's not like I'm going to die or anything." Gabriel's eyes narrowed at Morrison's nervous stammering. "Who knows, maybe with the injections I might not need anything. I've been mostly fine since I got here."

Gabriel's lip curled as he irritably fished in his own pockets; Morrison's brows shot up when he pulled out a bottle of his own. He shoved it at Morrison, who nearly dropped it in his fumbling to read the label.

"Lithium?" the other soldier asked. Gabriel didn't respond, glaring at a nearby wall. "You're bipolar?"

Gabriel was silent; he figured it didn't need verbal confirmation. It was on his record, all nice and public for his superiors to see. Even though it was handled, he still got shit for it.

Morrison dragged his teeth over his lip. "And they let you stay in?"

"Yeah."

"Didn't take away your meds?" _What_. "Sorry, that-- that's a dumb question."

"Morrison."

"Huh?"

"Who the fuck made you think that."

"Oh, uh. I-it's nothing, just. Just something I heard in JROTC, y'know?"

Gabriel gave the other soldier an incredulous look. First, Morrison was a horrible liar, and whoever he was covering for probably wasn't worth the effort if they'd made his literal-ray-of-sunshine partner think that getting prescribed medication for actual mental health issues was supposed to take a backseat to looking like a perfect golden boy soldier. Second, _holy fuck_ , JROTC? So Morrison had been groomed to salute and kiss ass and follow orders and blindly trust authority since he was what, fourteen or so?

This was definitely not something Gabriel would be able to fix with a little teasing and a few dumb jokes.

He sucked in a breath and looked Morrison in the eye, holding up the empty bottle. "I'm taking this, and I'm getting you more." The other soldier started to protest, but Gabriel cut him off before he could even get a single word in. "Calm down, I'm not gonna tell anyone. Just don't make this a habit."

Morrison sagged with relief, smiling tentatively. Not ducking his head or hiding it behind his hand like he did with the great big light-up-a-room grins he sometimes wore. "Thanks. I owe you one."

"You owe me a helluva lot more than that, Morrison." Gabriel held out his hand again, fighting the urge to smile, himself. It was infectious. "Can I have my meds back? Kinda need 'em."

"Oh! Right, sorry."

 


	2. what is fate to say how things are gonna turn out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They settle into their routine-- and each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised there'd be more, and there is. See? Again, more headcanons. This time it's fluffier though. 
> 
> Think of a movie that wouldn't even make it onto the pay-per-view list of a conservative household. Now think of a few more. Got a list in your head? Good. That's what the list of movies and shows Jack has not seen looks like. One of my uncles didn't even let my cousins watch Pokemon when they were kids because it was anime and clearly all anime = hentai. Seriously. 
> 
> Steven Universe wouldn't have still been running when Gabriel was growing up, but I bet his parents remembered it and showed it to him. Either that or it made it onto some nostalgia-channel or another that focused on reruns of older shows. I'm also willing to bet that his school did a production of Hamilton, because if it hasn't made classic status by that point then I'm going to eat my own shoes.

Time went on and it only got easier to deal with his partner. _Morrison_ gave way to _Jack_ , then _Jackie_ and sometimes _sunshine_ ; _Reyes_ became _Gabriel_ , and then _Gabe_ not too long after that. Sparring turned less into a fight and more into a dance between them, and during what few missions they were given up to that point, they worked together brilliantly.

And after all was said and done at the end of the day, they'd come back to base and just... Talk. It was so much easier after that first time - what better icebreaker was there than mutually assured crazy? - that Gabriel sometimes wondered if the Jack he talked to was really the same bright-eyed ass-kissing pretty little golden boy that had pissed him off so much in the beginning. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense that the Morrison he met back then _wasn't_ the Jack he called a friend, because Morrison was the face that everybody got to see.

But Jack? Jack was the face that Gabriel got to see. Jack who had never seen anything relating to Star Trek, and sat spellbound through several hours of catching up on it. Jack who put ketchup in his scrambled eggs for some reason and then called it a balanced breakfast because tomatoes are technically fruit. Jack who spoke one language and sounded really embarrassingly bad trying to speak any other language, or even trying to imitate accents in that same language.

Jack who, when the topic of high school electives came up in the mess, blushed as he admitted to swimming, wrestling, and fencing. Who didn't quite believe Gabriel's open admission of being in drama and choir - probably because he was leaving out the part where he'd been shoehorned into costume design instead of actually participating in the shows themselves - and dared him to sing something for twenty bucks.

"Twenty dollars won't buy me shit, sunshine," Gabriel shot back. "For fifty I'll see if I can find the other choir kids in the room."

"Alright, sure. If you'll climb up on the table to do it."

Thus Gabriel promptly climbed up on the table, cleared his throat, and pulled out a number from Les Mis that _at least_ four people joined in on. He'd found the choir kids.

Jack was amazed as Gabriel sat back down, to the tune of a mess hall full of soldiers cheering and applauding. "Okay, that. Was pretty cool."

Gabriel grinned and held out his hand. "I'll take my money now, thanks."

"Too bad. Don't have any." Jack shrugged. "Just gonna have to wait until I can hit up an ATM, I guess."

"Excuses."

"You'll get your money."

"Sure I will."

Jack huffed. The moment passed and the hubub died down, the mess hall returning to its usual dull roar levels of background noise. When he spoke again, it was quieter, not intended for ears other than Gabriel's. "You've, uh. Got a nice voice there."

Gabriel sat up straighter, preening. Been a while since he'd heard that. "Think so?"

"Yeah, definitely. Better than mine."

"C'mon, can't be that bad."

"You'd be surprised." Jack was turning the conversation towards himself again, probably not even realizing he was doing it. Gabriel could see it, knew it was happening, but he also didn't mind indulging it. He knew where it came from, knew that soft squishy part of Jack's psyche that craved validation and honesty that much could only form in an atmosphere where he had to fight for every scrap of it that he got.

Goddamn, he was getting soft on the guy. Sweet was one thing, soft was another. "Fishing for compliments, Jack? Goodness, what the boys upstairs would think if they heard that," he teased; Jack scoffed and elbowed him, and he laughed. "Seriously though, you can't be that bad. Your voice is... It's alright, for a white boy." Jack rolled his eyes as Gabriel continued. "The rest is just practice."

"Like I have time for practice."

"Not saying you have to. Just saying it's not impossible, if it's something you wanna learn how to do." Gabriel gave him an appraising look. "So, do you?"

Jack blinked for a second. "I-- is that an offer?"

It took Gabriel a bit to convince himself to not answer in the affirmative. He had to remind himself that no, Jack the pretty piece of stale midwest white bread probably would not respond well to a smirk and the words _if you want it to be_. "Nah, it's a question. Do you want to learn? It really is that simple when you get down to it."

"I wouldn't know where to start," Jack admitted. Probably wasn't lying, either. Barely listened to music, probably didn't have time for too many musicals. Hell, he probably hadn't even seen Hamilton.

So Gabriel said "we can work on that," and meant it, and didn't think once that he was getting in over his head.

As it turned out, he was in over his head in a lot of ways when it came to Jack.

\---

Gabriel started small. Classic musicals that everyone had seen, that had somehow escaped Jack's notice. _My old man said musicals were for kids_. Yet another reason Jack's old man needed a kick in the teeth, but Gabriel had already made Jack well aware of how he should never be allowed to meet Jack's parents.

When they got into it, he realized it was worse than he'd originally thought. Even Disney musicals, comedies, romances, really good kids' shows-- all that. Jack had missed out on most everything that Gabriel would consider to be must-see things. Things Gabriel had grown up on, Jack had gone without, or only seen glimpses of through the lens of what other people were exposed to. Soon it became less about the music, and more about filling in the gaps.

"The fuck did you even do on Saturdays?" Gabriel asked him at one point. They were between episodes of a binge on a kids' show during the wee hours in a rec room that was empty except for them; Jack had taken to humming along to the ending theme. It was progress, even if they had different favorite characters and liked different songs. Wasn't like Gabriel was surprised by his partner's choices.

Jack blinked. "Chores?"

"And you never once got the impression that this was anything but standard operating procedure."

"Dad would say it was something to be proud of because I wasn't rotting my brain."

Gabriel gestured to the TV. "Does it really feel like this is rotting your brain, though?"

"In the first season it did." Jack snickered when Gabriel elbowed him. "Whaaat. It started out boring, c'mon!"

" _You_ started out boring."

"I'm not boring!"

"Jack Morrison, you are the most boring, salt-on-white-meat-chicken kind of bumpkin there is."

"And you're an asshole."

"Could put in for a transfer." Gabriel was only half-joking.

So it was a relief when Jack replied. "Never," he said, absolutely confident in it. "Who else would sit through cheesy movies and kids' shows with me? Hardass soldiers don't usually take people up on something like 'hey, wanna watch a cartoon about lesbian rocks from space? I bailed on my partner halfway through season two.'"

Gabriel huffed. "Hardass soldiers are allowed to have taste." Then, "next episode? This one's got more Pearl."

Watching Jack try to hide his excitement at that prospect was a highlight of the evening. The guy needed to stop wearing his emotions on his sleeve like that. And stop tapping his foot, because it was bouncing the entire couch. "Pfffuh, well. I'm game. That is, I'm game if you are."

"I'm always game for more of this kind of thing." Because Jack wouldn't watch it alone. He wouldn't be able to justify it to himself. And Gabriel didn't mind watching it all with him - even if he'd already seen everything before - because Jack was adorable when he was excited, and funny when he was confused or weirded out, and a joy to watch whenever a plot point finally clicked and he blurted out whatever he'd managed to get from this or that bit of foreshadowing.

Yeah, Gabriel was in way too deep.

 


	3. tell me that we'll always be together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gabriel is bad at talking about things and Jack is only marginally better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in one go last night, all one long stretch of pounding at the keys to come up with a result. My GF and overwatch buddies were a little bit annoyed at me for ignoring actually playing the game to write about it, but I regret nothing.
> 
> This has been in my head for a while now. Figured I oughta do something with it.

Humans were always worse to fight than omnics. At least with omnics, all they wanted was to kill as many as possible, and they were efficient about it. Humans wanted to discourage, to hurt, to maim, to scare. Humans fought dirty. A human, for example, would leave behind frag mines to slow their pursuers.

And of course it was Jack who had charged off ahead to pursue, not looking at where his feet were going.

In the instant before it went off, time had seemed to slow down. Gabriel remembered the click of the pressure plate, the beep from the mine. Jack freezing in front of him, the idiot having sprinted ahead with those long legs. An aborted gesture just before it went off, the beginnings of a motion that was probably meant to ward Gabriel off even though he was already moving.

Then the blast, then his ears ringing. Yelling into the comm, _Morrison's down_ , barely able to hear, not sure if he was howling or whispering as he pulled his partner into his lap - careful not to make the injuries worse, unable to just leave it alone - and said that everything was going to be okay. Jack was bleeding. God, so much blood. He'd taken the bulk of the shrapnel, most of the concussive force of the blast. Gabriel had seen death before, but having it be his own partner who was cradled in his arms as he tried to ignore how Jack's leg _shouldn't bend that way_ \--

It was hell. A hell they weren't supposed to be a part of. Gabriel gave as good as he got when his superiors tried to chew him out in the debriefing afterward, snarling that bomb disposal wasn't anywhere near their area of expertise, that the intel had been shit and mission had been a horrorshow from the start because of it. They'd initially been sent in for hostage retrieval, with a larger team. Only the two of them had come out alive, along with a few still-unaccounted-for terrorists (that Jack had incidentally been trying to chase down); the hostages had ended up as dead as the rest of their squad.

The suits in charge wanted to blame Gabriel. Gabriel reminded them that if he hadn't made the call to pull out when he did, they would have lost six multi-million-dollar supersoldier lab rats instead of four. They said they'd take that under advisement and dismissed him; he was sure it was going to go on his record anyway, another black mark on the books to make him look unreliable and unstable while under pressure. Another count of insubordination.

Except Gabriel couldn't bring himself to give a rat's ass about that, as the next thing he did was book a cab straight to the hospital where Jack was-- where he'd be too, if his injuries had been more than what a fancy biotic field could fix.

They almost didn't let him in. The whole supersoldier thing meant that you needed security clearance just to get in to treat someone like Jack, let alone visit him where he was being treated. Gabriel had to go through secretaries, get them to call people in charge so he could bark at them. He had to pull rank just to do that. Then he had to get his XO involved when all that didn't work. He had a fleeting thought of how if he and Jack were an item romantically, he probably wouldn't need to go through nearly this much bullshit.

Hah. As if that would ever happen.

Finally at Jack's door with a bag of his partner's things slung over his shoulder, Gabriel sucked in a breath. He was going to tell Jack, point blank, how much of an idiot he'd been. How much trouble he'd gotten Gabriel into. How he was never, ever allowed to go running ahead like a dumbass on Gabriel's watch again, and how if he did, Gabriel would let him bleed out next time.

He went inside, and all the bitterness and righteous anger drained out of him. There was Jack, propped up on a mountain of pillows, his leg immobilized in a cast. Perking up as Gabriel came through the door, trying to straighten himself out and promptly wincing at the movement. He looked like shit, to be honest; a mess of gauze and sutures, slightly too tall and broad for the hospital gown to not look ridiculous. The warmth of a biotic emitter permeated the room, probably to accelerate Jack's healing.

"Gabe, hey!" Most ridiculous of all: Jack was smiling. "Please tell me you brought food. The things they serve here are worse than boot camp."

Gabriel blinked for a second, as it took him at least that long to unstick the lump in his throat. He made himself return the smile, shaking his head. "Must not be too drugged if you're hungry," he said. To his credit, his voice didn't shake. "What've they got you on? Morphine?"

"Yeah, turns out that doesn't work so well for us. Pro tip, supersoldiers are resistant to medication." Jack rubbed the back of his neck with the arm that wasn't hooked to an IV. "Instead they kinda shot something directly into my spine, aaand now I can't feel my legs."

"So what's in the IV?"

"Dunno." Of course Jack wasn't paying attention to what they were pumping him full of. "Did you bring a phone or anything, maybe? Something to order pizza with?"

And back to food. Gabriel snorted, shaking his head. "No phone, but I did bring this." He shifted so that he could reach into the bag, and brought out a tablet to show to his partner; Jack lit up at the sight. "Along with a change of clothes. Figured you'd need it."

Jack only gawked as Gabriel came over with the tablet, hesitant to grab it as it was handed to him; his brow furrowed after he'd hit the button to turn it on. "Gabe, this is yours."

Gabriel huffed. The act of grabbing a chair gave him an excuse to not make eye contact. "Yeah, your point?"

"Uh..." Out of the corner of his eye as he was settling at his partner's bedside, he saw Jack's fingers tighten on the edges of the tablet, saw his throat bob as he swallowed. "I mean, don't you need this? Aren't you afraid I'll mess up your settings or something?"

"If it'll make you feel better, I can always steal yours when we get back to base just to make it even."

Jack frowned deeply at the device in his hands. "When 'we' get back? Don't, uh," Gabriel could feel Jack's stare, didn't dare look for fear of getting caught in it, "don't you mean, when _you_ get back?"

"No." Not a scrap of hesitation or a shred of doubt. "I've got some leave saved up."

"Gabe--"

"Don't say it, Jack. I don't wanna hear it, okay?" Gabriel's voice ended up harsher than he meant for it to be, but he kept going. "You're not gonna get kicked out, and I'm not gonna let them pair me with another partner. You're gonna get through this and come out of it back on your feet and good as new. Understood?"

He looked up and saw exactly what he'd been afraid of; Jack's pretty blue eyes, staring right at him. Jack was cycling through as many emotions as he was, he knew. He could see it in those eyes. He wondered if Jack could see the same in his own.

"Understood?" he said again.

Jack drew his teeth over his lip and nodded slowly. "Yes, sir," he replied, quietly.

It was like a kick in the gut to hear it - especially directed at him - but Gabriel would take it if it meant he could keep Jack with him for just a little longer. "Alright," he said. "Now, think you can move over? I got it set up so we can pick up where we left off on DS9 on that thing if you want."

He'd move mountains for the smile Jack gave him right then, awkwardly scooting to the side to give Gabriel room to squeeze onto the bed. "Yeah, sure."

\---

They stayed like that for hours. Nurses came and went, but the beauty of technology made it so that those interruptions were few and far between; most of their checks could be done remotely, with the many monitors that Jack was strapped to. All they had to do was check the IV (which Gabriel found out was a simple saline drip meant to replenish fluids) and ask if Jack needed help with anything. Gabriel only ended up leaving the bed twice due to outside circumstances, and one of those times was for the sake of following up on an order of pizza they'd placed with the tablet.

It wasn't that much of a surprise when Jack ate most of the pizza. It was a little more of a surprise when Jack leaned his head into Gabriel's shoulder, but Gabriel wasn't about to ruin the moment by questioning it.

"Gabe?"

"Yeah?"

"What if I said I didn't want to go back?"

That was a surprise.

Except, well, in a way it wasn't. Gabriel got the impression that Jack had never wanted to be there for his own reasons, had barely even known his own reasons. Meanwhile all Gabriel had ever done was encourage Jack to think about things that weren't military at all; things that Gabriel considered to be reasons to fight, things worth fighting for, but as for Jack? Who could say, really. Jack wasn't used to losing people or even getting hurt.

Maybe he'd gotten a wake-up call. "What do you mean?" Gabriel asked, keeping his voice as even as he could.

Jack didn't say anything for a while, his eyes on the tablet as the opening titles to another episode played. "I mean..." He gripped the scratchy hospital blanket tightly. "What would you do if I didn't want to be a part of all this anymore?"

Gabriel took in a long, steadying breath, and let it out nice and slow. He could lie. But what did Jack need to hear? "I'm not letting them pair me up with someone else," Gabriel said eventually; the truth, in a way.

"But what does that even mean?"

"It means I don't give a shit whether my discharge is considered honorable or not."

Jack inhaled sharply through his nose, tensing up next to him. "Gabe--"

But Gabriel cut him off before he could say anything else. "It's your call, sunshine." Always would be. "If you don't want to stay, that's up to you. I don't have any say in that." Then, quieter-- "Don't make me spell it out."

On the monitors, the steady beeping had picked up somewhat; Jack's heart was pounding. "I-- are you saying you won't stay in without me?"

"Jack," Gabriel sighed. "If you stay, I've got your back. If you leave, it doesn't matter. This isn't about me."

"But why would you refuse to take on another partner?"

"I don't _want_ another partner, okay?"

Jack chewed on his lip for what felt like ages; after some time, he paused the video on the tablet and set it down on top of one of the beeping monitors, having to twist uncomfortably to do so. Once he was settled again, he folded his arms and none-too-gently elbowed Gabriel in the side. "Alright, talk to me."

"Jack, please."

"No, no. We're going to talk about this." Jack fixed him with a stern look, or as stern a look as someone like Jack could ever manage when it was directed at someone who knew him to be a great big soft ball of cottony fluff and feelings. "Because you're making it sound a lot like you want me to stay."

"It doesn't matter what I want."

"But if I leave," Jack continued, "then you'll throw your career down the drain just so you don't have to get paired with anyone else who isn't me. Am I getting that right?"

Gabriel could only respond with a sullen "yes."

"And yet you sound a lot like you're trying your damnedest to _not_ imply that you'd be following me?"

"No. I wouldn't follow you."

"Why not?"

"It's complicated."

"So explain it to me."

"Jack..."

"I thought I was going to die, Gabe. I was sure I was going to die and I didn't. I thought you'd go after the target and leave me behind, and you didn't. You chose me over salvaging the mission and potentially saving a lot of other lives in the process." Jack's voice was cracking in some places, hoarse in others. "Either I'm important to you or I'm not, but you could at least tell me which one it is."

Gabriel ached from how tense he was, every muscle pulled taut. He'd been the one to watch, but Jack had been the one to almost die. He had to wonder how different that fear was from the kind Gabriel had felt himself, the similarities in the shape it took as it tore at Jack's thoughts just as it tore at his own. Because it still did. He was still terrified that Jack could die, on any mission and at any time. So much so that he wouldn't stop Jack from leaving that life, not for a moment. But he also knew he wouldn't be able to see anything but the corruption within the chain of command, the incompetence, if Jack weren't with him to help him see what was worth fighting for.

How could he put that into words? That he cared so much and so deeply that he could not, would not try to justify Jack staying with him if it seemed for even an instant that it wasn't what Jack wanted? That he hated himself for caring, for feeling, for being a distraction from the mission and from Jack's boundless idealism because of his selfishness and the mess in his own head?

It was impossible. Words couldn't do it. Instead he took one of Jack's hands - the one without the IV line - into his own, winding their fingers together. Holding onto him tightly, like a lifeline. Hearing Jack gasp even as he let out a shaky sigh of his own and brought that hand up to dust kisses over the knuckles. There were no words for everything he felt when he was with Jack, the clusterfuck of emotions that cycled between hate and love and everything in between.

"Gabe?" Jack sounded small, vulnerable. Gabriel closed his eyes and let himself just _feel_ \-- even if Jack didn't feel the same way, it was worth noting that he hadn't pulled away or flinched.

Just enough, in that moment, for Gabriel to believe that maybe he wasn't alone. "Don't make me spell it out," he whispered.

The hand wound up in his gave a gentle squeeze. "Okay."

 


End file.
